The Hanged Man and the Fortune Teller

by Lucy Banks

  “You don’t know that,” she presses. “They may have just vanished from existence. At least you still have a mind to think with, eyes to experience the world with.”

  “These are not eyes!” he hisses, astounded by her belligerence. “These are echoes of eyes! Mist and vapour, nothing more!”

  “But they work, don’t they? You see things with them, and more besides.”

  The ghost thinks of the darkness, swirling above certain humans, and shudders. “Nothing I’d want to see. Besides,” he adds, “we cannot touch. We cannot feel.”

  “But we can hear. We can talk to one another.”

  It is exasperating to listen to, not least because her points make him feel petty, as though death were merely a minor condition to bear, rather than an entire way of being. He shakes his head, more to clear his thoughts than anything else. His feet move, quite without him realising it. He needs to keep going, or else stop and sink into further despair.

  But the Fortune Teller will not give up so easily this time, that much is clear. He senses her presence, dogged and determined, lingering behind and waiting for him to turn.

  I will not, he thinks childishly, and ploughs away from her, further down the towpath. Those machines have been here, he can tell, clipping away at the grass until it is lush, green and shaven. It is unnatural, but then, what is natural about this modern world? Everything is artifice these days.

  The smart residential buildings eventually give way to glass-fronted towers. People pass them, laughing, talking on their little plastic devices that they press to their ears, or simply out for a stroll. The sight of them embitters him further, but still, he walks. After a while, he wonders if the Fortune Teller has desisted, disappeared and returned to the boy’s flat. A sneaky glance informs him that this is not the case. Although the waning afternoon light passes through her like rain through a muslin cloth, the shape of her is still visible; the firm shoulder, the line of her shawl.

  I won’t give in to her, he tells himself, and is surprised to feel the hint of a smile, tugging at his lips. For this has become a game, he knows that now; a darkly playful tug-of-war, to see who will falter first. A part of him respects her refusal to surrender, despite his irritation.

  He turns, away from the river and into the narrow streets of the capital, past public houses that have stood there for centuries, and houses that survived fires and bombings. So much history, tumbled together with modernity; a crazed mishmash of old and new. Together, they dive into the city they know so well, one leading, the other following.

  The sun sets, casting fire across the city skyline. The sky turns navy, then a gradual shade of grey. The north star glitters overhead. Still, he walks, and so does she.

  Finally, when the moon is high and cold above the surrounding buildings, he stops.

  “You win,” he says, without turning.

  The Fortune Teller smiles. He can sense her smiling. It is astonishing how well they know one another.

  “Very well. First, will you start calling me by my name again?”

  “I don’t remember your name.”

  “Then I will remind you.” She floats closer, extends a hand to his. “Every time you forget, I will remind you. It is Agnes.”

  The ghost nods, smiles, and takes her hand. “Yes. Of course it is.” And she is right, because he does remember, the first time he ever heard her name, shouted across a field by a short, deep-voiced woman, far older than she. Her mother? he thinks, straining to recollect, then, no, that’s not it. Her aunt. She lived with her aunt.

  “Each time your memory runs dry,” Agnes continues, as they walk together at a more leisurely pace, “I will be there to replenish it. Because I remember all the stories you told me. About Eleanor, your brothers, your little sister. Even about Elizabeth Stride.”

  Now there is a name I had forgotten, the ghost thinks incredulously. “She was killed,” he mutters aloud, straining to remember the details. “My brother, he was—”

  “—it wasn’t your brother,” she says gently. “Her death was in the newspapers, as were all the other poor women. They said it was a murderer called Jack the Ripper, do you remember?”

  He shakes his head, unable to comprehend the jumbled images, vying for attention in his mind. A slit throat. Shadows on cobblestones. A man, shouting. None of it makes sense, and he cannot grasp sense from it, no matter how hard he tries. “But this is no life for you,” he says instead, returning to the reassurance of the present. Crowds of baying young men herd out of the nearest public house, then walk straight through them. It doesn’t matter, though. These things ceased to matter a long time ago. We are a different species to them now, he realises. And their world is not ours.

  The Fortune Teller smiles gently. “It is the life I chose. Shall I tell you about Eleanor, and what happened after you died?”

  He flinches. It is impossible not to, for even the mention of that time stirs something within him; a wretched agony that he’s terrified to disturb. “I do not think I am ready,” he whispers, frightened to meet her steadfast gaze.

  “But you are,” she corrects him. “And once it is done, it is done. Now, let’s begin.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  — 1878 —

  DEATH IS A complex state to adjust to.

  Breathing, for example. The ghost feels that he breathes, is aware of the memory of his chest rising and falling; but when he considers the matter, he finds that he needs no air at all. He makes the effort to inhale, to draw in as much oxygen as he can into his lungs, only to find that there is no sensation to the process. Instead, air flows through him almost impudently, as oblivious to his presence as every other thing around him.

  He needs no sleep, and so the days and nights blend seamlessly with one another; a drawn-out, endless swathe of time. He has tried closing his eyes and simply standing, which works to a certain extent, but never fully. He always seems to be aware, even when he’s trying his hardest not to be.

  And in those first dark days, he is fully aware, more than he’d want to be. Eleanor’s parents are deceased, and naturally, the person she turns to is his mother, who looks alarmingly frailer, pinched to greyness, broken by the news. The shock of his death has devastated his family, and it is excruciating to watch their pain; Mother’s wracking sobs at the kitchen table, Martha weeping by the fence in the garden, fretfully tugging handfuls of grass in her hands. And Arthur, maintaining stoic composure in front of the rest of them, only to shake with silent sobs behind a locked bathroom door.

  The ghost’s guilt is overwhelming; for it is not right that he should be the one to bring this much pain on the ones he loves. That was never his role in the family, he was always the peace-maker, the ever-reliable, the one everyone turned to for reassurance and stability. His world has flipped, his death has made him a destructive force, and he hates it.

  Worst of all is the sight of Eleanor. At first, the ghost is relieved that she has chosen to move in with Mother, that she isn’t on her own. But Mother’s cottage at Battersea seems only to torment her; giving her a ceaseless succession of hours in which to brood, and none of the responsibility of her own household to distract her.

  For weeks, she sits by the patio windows, which are covered, as is decorous for mourning. She stares at the heavy fabric without seeing, kneading her hands against her lap, and her curls hang unwashed over her face, dank as wet strips of rag. She has already become thinner, less substantial, and isn’t even bothering to wear her corset, only the same dress, over and over each day. Normally, Mother would tend to her, gently bully her into taking more care over her appearance, but Mother’s own grief is so encompassing, she can only mumble the occasional comment, then retreat from the room.

  They tiptoe around one another; two tentative planets, orbiting at a safe distance. Martha avoids them both. It is hideous to see the three women who matter most to him, each locked in their own private misery, all of them diminished by their suffering. The house
of his childhood, which he remembers as always being a place of noise and energy, is now still and silent as a tomb.

  The ghost follows them, frequently reaching out to touch them, though he knows it will serve no purpose. He wishes he had appreciated the sense of touch more when he was alive; the glorious ability to simply reach out and make contact with someone, to feel the soft pliancy of their skin and the heat of the blood beneath it. Again and again, he reaches for Eleanor, particularly when she is sobbing in bed, her shoulders heaving with the force of her sadness.

  I am here, he whispers in the darkness, over and over. And tries to wrap his arm around her, only to sink through to the mattress.

  The day of the funeral is punctuated by a high wind, uncharacteristically fierce for this time of year. He had listened to it building the night before, while standing in the guest room, gazing at his wife’s sleeping body. The low howl had echoed down the chimney; a fitting sound of loss, he’d thought.

  Now, Eleanor struggles to awaken. Her eyes are blacker than he’s ever seen them, hollow, dead eyes that see the world but do not respond to it. His mother is the opposite, fussing over her dress, recently purchased for her by Arthur, from The London General Mourning Warehouse on Regent Street. It is usually improper for women to attend funerals, but Mother insists upon being there, as does Martha. The ghost does not think that Eleanor cares one way or another; she is too mired in her own silent world to notice the events around her.

  The door knocker raps at eleven o’clock. Mother rushes to the door.

  To the ghost’s surprise, Arthur is accompanied by Fred, who is wearing what appears to be a new mourning suit. Business must be good, he notes, with a shade of a sneer. Whatever suspicious sort of business it is, anyway. He cannot help but notice that his older brother looks exhausted and fitful, standing awkwardly in the hallway. Even Mother’s kindly words fail to put him at ease.

  Arthur nods at Martha as she comes down the stairs. “You look very smart.”

  “Yes.” Martha rests her hands on her dress, and casts her eyes to the floor. She accepts the warm hug of her youngest brother, and the stiff, uncomfortable embrace of the eldest, both with the same lack of emotion. How will she get through this day? the ghost wonders, wishing his little sister would change her mind and avoid the church service. It will not be a pleasant experience for one so young, even though she’s more resilient than several adults he knows.

  “I’m not sure it’s proper to be there,” Fred mutters, rubbing at his nose. “People will think you’re a commoner, Mother. Ladies don’t attend funerals, as you know.”

  “Oh, shush.” Mother responds by shaking her head more earnestly than is necessary. “I’ll mourn my boy how I wish, and the neighbours may prattle about it as much as they desire. But I’ll say farewell to him, you mark my words.” Then her voice breaks like a shattering dam, subsiding into fresh sobbing, muted swiftly by Arthur’s reassuring shoulder.

  “Where is Eleanor?” Arthur asks eventually, looking expectantly up the stairs. “Will she still be joining us?”

  “Not if she’s seen sense,” Fred says darkly. “She’d do better here, at home.”

  “Perhaps she wants to say goodbye to him!” Martha snaps, taking an instinctive step backwards. “What would be the harm in that?”

  “Women are too sensitive for such things.”

  “So say you men.”

  “Stop it, the pair of you!” The bite of Mother’s anger silences them both. “Who knows? My boy’s spirit may be waiting at the church, ready to bid us farewell too…”

  He’s not, the ghost thinks, with a wry smile. But the expression holds little weight, it is only a habitual attempt at levity, in the face of unrelenting anguish.

  “He’s not,” Fred says flatly, unaware that he’s echoed his deceased younger brother to the letter. “And all of this—” he gestures to the covered hallway mirror, the drawn curtains, just visible from the living room, “—won’t bring him back. I am sorry to be brutish, Mother, but that’s the way it is. Dead is dead.”

  With a wrenching gasp, Mother pulls away from Arthur and flees to the kitchen, Martha swiftly following, like a chick racing after a hen.

  Arthur chews his lip. “That was a bit much,” he murmurs eventually.

  Fred sighs. “Perhaps it was. But I can’t tolerate the falseness of it. Our brother’s gone, that’s all there is to it. No amount of covering mirrors or ordering fancy black stationary is going to bring him back.”

  “You received Mother’s note then, I take it?” Arthur’s mouth twitches into a grin, before resuming severity a moment later.

  “Ridiculous item. I’ve no time for such things, this excessive mourning is a mere device to line the pockets of wealthy death-peddlers.”

  “But—” The air hangs heavy with Arthur’s uncertainty.

  “What?”

  Watching Fred carefully, Arthur takes a deep breath, then speaks. “You do… you do miss him, don’t you?”

  Fred’s expression softens. “Of course I do. He was my brother, despite what happened. And I wish to God he’d not died, I really do. Every night I find myself remembering things, like how he used to kick that damned ball against the shed, do you remember? And when the vicar tripped over in church, and none of us could stop laughing, until Mother had to take us out?”

  “Gosh, I’d forgotten about that.” Arthur chuckles softly. “That was funny.”

  It really was, the ghost thinks, and moves closer, until his shoulders are almost level with theirs. Together they stand for a moment, three brothers, two united by life and grief, the other excluded forever. The ghost wishes they would show some sign of awareness, anything that hints they sense his presence, but there is nothing. Only silence and stillness.

  Finally, Fred coughs. “Of course, the memory of him stealing Eleanor from me isn’t one I’m so fond of.”

  “It wasn’t quite like that, was it?” Arthur says diplomatically.

  Now he’s deceased, the ghost isn’t so sure. At the time, he’d believed that he’d done the right thing, that Eleanor deserved better than his brother, who’d treated her boorishly, with casual disinterest most of the time. But I only saw what I wanted to see, he wonders, remembering how overwhelmed he’d been in her presence, how he’d envied his brother for having her. Maybe I did Fred wrong after all. Perhaps he’s right to be angry, even after all this time.

  “It’s funny,” Fred continues, as they walk towards the kitchen, “the other night, I found myself thinking now she’s a widow, perhaps she’ll look at me.”

  “Really?” Arthur stiffens, and the ghost is grateful for it, for someone to demonstrate his own personal feelings about the comment.

  Fred nods. “But then, I realised I didn’t have those feelings for her anymore. I haven’t for a long time, you see.”

  The ghost relaxes. So too does Arthur. “Who has your heart now then, brother?” he mutters, just as they enter the kitchen, to find Mother and Martha, huddled balefully around the table, each clutching cups of weak tea.

  “I think you know very well,” Fred retorts, then gives Arthur a meaningful nod, indicating a need to change the subject. He pats Mother on the shoulder, looming over her, almost bat-like in his black jacket and trousers. “My apologies, Mother, I spoke out of turn earlier. Will you forgive me?”

  Goodness me, that’s a first, the ghost thinks, unsure whether to be impressed or cynical.

  Mother sobs in response, then seizes his hand in both of hers. The ghost can understand the desperation of the gesture, as it is so rare to hear Fred like this; emotional and open, as he was in childhood, before Father died.

  The carriage clock chimes from the living room, and the others look up as one, knowing that it is time, that they need to make their way to the church. I’m truly about to attend my own funeral, the ghost thinks with disbelief. He’s long given up on the hope that he might wake from this nightmare and return to his previous satisfying, mund
ane existence, but still finds it impossible to imagine himself taking a pew at the back, listening to the local vicar eulogise about his life. It would be comedic, he thinks, watching Arthur help Mother to her feet, if it wasn’t so awful.

  While they prepare themselves downstairs, the ghost races above to find Eleanor. He can sense her, far more strongly now than when he was alive; and sure enough, he locates her immediately, at the dressing table in the guest bedroom. The looking glass is still draped with black crinoline, but somehow, she has managed to pile her curls upon her head and reduce the puffiness of her eyes. She looks better, yet worse, he thinks, lingering at her shoulder, studying the graceful curve of her neck. More presentable, but also less human. This is a mere mask that she is wearing to conceal her true emotions.

  He thinks upon what Fred has said. Perhaps he is right. She should not have to endure the horror of her husband’s funeral, especially without a body to formally lay to rest. How it must torture her to consider it, festering beneath the murky waters of the Thames, he thinks with a shudder. And how it torments me. It is not right.

  “Eleanor?” Mother’s voice trails up the stairs like a creeping vine, edging its way into Eleanor’s consciousness, nudging her out of her dazed reverie.

  With a sigh, Eleanor stands, then freezes, eyes wide and alert. “Are you there?” she whispers, tentatively as a child. “Sometimes I feel that you are.”

  “I am!” the ghost says, tripping through her in his haste to reach out and make contact. He scans her face for signs of recognition, but her expression doesn’t alter. “Can you hear me, my love? I’m here, I never left you.”

  She waits patiently, gaze flitting from one corner of the darkened room to the other. He tries again, whispering in her ear, speaking as clearly as possible, even shouting; but her expression doesn’t change. He presses his lips to her cheek, desperately trying to feel the heat of her skin upon them.

  It is futile, the ghost realises finally, twisted with misery, and watches as she leaves the room in a rustle of stiff material. It feels cavernous without her.